


California's Population

by Introvert_From_Space



Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Apocalypse, Character Death, Explosions, Guns, Lost Hope, Major Character Injury, Past Character Death, Zombies, running for life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-04-07 09:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19082233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Introvert_From_Space/pseuds/Introvert_From_Space
Summary: When a crazy, unknown disease begins to infect people in northern California no one thinks much of it at first. But when the side effects become more clear, the pale skin, aggressive behavior, and no memory or sympathy, people believe the apocalypse is coming. They realize this too late though, it sweeps everywhere changing almost everyone into the infected, as the doctors call them. How did the Try Guys manage to not get infected? They have no clue, but they want it to stay that way. The disease doctors call Than (short for the Greek god of death and destruction) is spread by a simple bite or scrape and acts fast. The Try Guys need to survive this, after all, there are very few people left.**This is set before Ned’s baby. I love little Wes though.





	1. Leaving Home- Ned and Ariel

Ned and Ariel’s Home: One week after infection

The doors had furniture shoved in front of them, the windows were covered in blankets and sheets. The house was left dark for twenty-four hours in fear of attracting the infected. Ned didn’t know what they were drawn to, but he wasn’t taking chances. The power was still on, but the water was turned off, what else would you expect with no one left to work at the purification facilities. Ned and Ariel had spent days getting ready to hopefully leave. Scavenging every cabinet and draw for batteries, flashlights, portable chargers, canned food. In the end, they had collected a duffle bag, and to bookbags worth of supplies. Ned knew they had more in the shed out back, but he wasn’t risking going outside into their unfenced backyard, nor would he let Ariel try. His phone was charging when it began buzzing. It was from Keith.

He and Keith had been talking the most. His house was the closest to Ned’s and they agreed to have Ned and Ariel come over there. From there they would try to make it to Eugene’s were Zach had already traveled two days ago. 

The message read:

What time are u leaving?  
In a couple minute or so.  
I’ll text you.  
Ok. Be safe

Ned signed. He wanted to make it out alive, but he wasn’t like those guys in moves who can kill infected people at ease. He did have something to fight for, Ariel, his friends, and everyone who became infected. 

“Ariel?” He called “We should get going,”

“Coming,” Ariel replied, entering the kitchen. She grabbed one of the bookbags on the counter and swung it over her shoulder, Ned followed suit and grabbed the duffle bag as well. They made their way to the door and grabbed the keys. Taking the car was actually a big debate. Ned argued that they would be a lot less conspicuous if they walked, but in the end, Ariel (per usual) won. 

Keith and Becky’s house was only a little over a mile away, so they would be there are four minutes tops if they went fast enough. From there it would be several miles to get to Eugene’s apartment. He said that the complex was empty, except for one man in the lobby that Zach claimed to see. But closer to the city there were more infected people roaming freely. They entered the garage through the side door and ensuring they were already before Ariel ran to press the button that would open the garage. 

Worried wasn’t the right word to describe his feelings, something stronger than that. Last time one of them was out of the house, it was a week ago and Ariel was rushing home early because of the outbreak. She described it as “hell”, and that enough was all he needed to her to stop questioning her.

Ariel looked over at him and nodded. She was to run into the car and the second she was in he would slam the gas pedal. She clicked the button and bolted to the car. Ned slammed the gas as hard as he could and the jolted forward. He heard a clunk, he’d run someone over, someone infected, no doubt, but he didn’t feel any better. He kept driving, at a little slower of a pace, but still way over fifty miles per hour. 

They arrived in no time, the trick was getting out of the car. Ned texted Keith so he was ready at the door, and though there weren’t infected people on the front lawn, there were definitely some on the street. They didn't know if sound or light, or whatever else attracted the infected, so they tried to avoid anything, and everything. 

In the end, they chose to exit the car slowly and quietly unless spotted, then run to the door as fast as possible. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was all they got. The sun was peaking in the sky at the point they decided to leave the car. The infected people on the street seemed preoccupied with a payphone across the road. They left on the count of three.

“One, two, three,” Ned and Ariel spontaneously opened their doors. They infected seemed to not notice, but as soon as Ariel’s foot touched the ground, with a crunch of the gravel they all stopped and looked in their direction. Neither moved as the infected tilted their heads as if they were sensing if they were people. After what felt like an eternity, they slowly began stumbling forward. They were uncoordinated and tripping over their own feet, but not as slow or as dumb as the movies entailed. They were a little slower then Ned’s average walking pace and had the sense to walk around cars and stepover tipped garbage cans. 

“Run,” Ariel shouted as she dashed for the front door. Ned followed without hesitation. He made it to the door seconds after Ariel, who was already pounding on the door. A second later, the door was thrown open by Becky whose face was covered with worry. She ushered them inside and slammed the door bolting it behind her. 

“You guys made it,” She said teary-eyed. Keith ran into the entryway and pulled them in for a group hug.


	2. Leaving Safety- Zach and Eugene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “...if Keith’s house is swarming with infected people, how are they going to get in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this will be updated every week on Wednesday since both of my prewritten chapters have been posted now.

Eugene’s Apartment: Eight Days After the Infection

“They aren’t coming,” Eugene said, scrolling through the real of text messages from him and Keith.

“What?!”

“When Ned and Ariel left the car the infected saw them and now they are extremely intrigued with Ned’s car and Keith’s front yard,”

“Great,” Zach sighed “When do we leave?”

“They said as soon as possible,” Eugene stated.

“Which basically means ‘get here NOW’,” Zach added. Smirking a little. They weren’t exactly packed, well at least Eugene wasn’t, most of Zach’s stuff was still in his bag from leaving his house. “You better get packing, I’ll grab anything I have left out, then we’ll go,”

“You got it,” He walked out, making his way down the narrow hall from the kitchen to the bedroom. “Can I bring booze?” He questioned.

“A small amount,” Zach answer, silently laughing to himself. Now wasn’t the time to get drunk, but Zach appreciates the humor. As he walked about the apartment searching for little odd and ends he took out of his bag he couldn’t help but think if Keith’s house is swarming with infected people, how are they going to get in? He sighed, he wanted to make it out of this, he wanted all of them to make it out of this. 

\---------

“You ready?” Zach inquired as he shouldered his pack and made his way for the door. After thirty minutes of packing and checking the house, they decided it was finally time to leave.

“Ready when you are,” he replied. Eugene looked ready for the apocalypse. He was wearing tan cargo pants and a camo top with a jean jacket over it. His hair was pulled back with a black bandana. It reminded Zach kind of like what he wore in the “Try Guys Try Not to Die Alone” video. It’s funny how he was actually going to need these skills, seeing that they have to survive without much help. 

Eugene slowly opened the door as if a rabid beast was on the other side, in theory, there could be. The hall was clear and silent. They crept down the hall, not speaking but making weird hand signals that the other couldn't understand, like in a really bad spy movie. They couldn’t take the elevator, so the settled on taking the back set of stairs that the staff used, they lead out to (or should, Eugene doesn’t know) to the back were hopefully a delivery truck will be parked or something. This plan also avoids the infected man that Zach encountered when coming to Eugene’s. Now that Zach thought about it, he was the only one that has been up close with someone infected. By not making noise the man stayed away, seemingly distracted by a vending machine. Thank goodness too, because if he came at Zach, he was guaranteed dead. 

But that was in the past now, at this point, the numbers at each platform were getting lower and lower until there were no more steps to climb. Even more cautiously this time, Eugene opened the door quietly and quickly shut it again.

“What is it?” Zach asked, but he could tell by the worry painted on Eugene’s face what it was.

“Someone infected, well more like several people infected,” he responded whilst pulling off his bag to rummage through the supplies. He continued to look silently till he found what he was looking for, a silver steak knife and a lighter. He handed the lighter to Zach.

“You're not proposing we fight these things,” Eugene nodded, “What am I supposed to do with a freaking lighter? Burn them when they are two inches away.” Zach's voice grew louder and more frustrated. 

“It's all I got unless you want to trust your aim with a steak knife!” Zach grumbled.

“Do you happen to have a towel with along with your alcohol do you?” Zach's voice had calmed as he realized maybe he wasn’t total screwed. Eugene nodded and began digging through the bag to find the towel and bourbon for his friend. When he finally retrieved it from the bottom of the heavy camping bag he handed it over. Zach opened the bottle and poured some of the content over the small hand towel. He looked around the floor to find a hair tie he saw lying around earlier. He grabbed it and tied it around the crumpled towel. “That should make it easier to throw,” He said tossing it lightly into his other hand and back. “Let's hope these things hate fire,”

“Yeah,” He said shouldering his backpack once again and readying his knife. “On three?”

Zach’s sighed, “On three,”

“One, two, three,” Eugene opened the door trying to be a little conspicuous as possible in this situation. Zach had his lighter at ready and seemed prepared to throw at any moment, which was great. Eugene peeped out and quietly opened the door further letting him and Zach leave the safety of the apartment complex one and for all. They sneaked along the wall undetected until the glint of the sun reflected off Eugene’s knife. An infected person quickly turned its head towards them and began coming after them.

People infected with a zombie-like virus are a lot faster than movies make them out to be. They also were clearly attracted to light and sound. The second the light reflected of the knife the infected women came toward them and her grunts drew the other people’s attention. 

The first thing they needed to do was run, but when your in this situation you kind of forgot stuff like that, like how people in danger will forget what number to call. Zach snapped out of the trance first, quickly lighting the towel which coincidentally combusted. He threw it toward the closest zombie, grab Eugene’s arm and ran. He didn’t want to look back to see the zombie in flames or the ones on his tale he just knew they had to get out of there. Whilst they ran Eugene left the state of shock he was in and picked up his pace. They lost their hope of finding a car or truck so they were stuck on foot. When they were out of range of the zombies, who seemed to lose interest in them, they realized how incredibly screwed they are. No car near the inner, populated city filled with people who would gladly kill them and about three miles until the safety of Keith’s house. 

“Well, fu-” A loud grunt came from behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this will be updated every week on Wednesday since both of my prewritten chapters have been posted now.


	4. Trapped- Zach and Eugene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "At least we're stuck in a place with food,"

“Run!” And they were off again, barely able to catch there breath from the long bolt a second ago. They didn’t check how many there were if even one of them caught up to them it wouldn’t matter how many, they would be screwed. Eugene tried to keep an eye out for buildings to hide in but the streets were filled with zombies mingling or the building barricaded in hopes of keeping out zombies. That was until he saw in the distance a grocery market. A big one, Vons, He grabbed Zach’s arm and pulled him toward the mechanical doors. 

The store smelled of rotten meat and decomposed everything. The floor had cans spread all over and a dark puddle Zach had assumed was blood from a decomposed, pale body with a bullet in its head. He tried not to look at it, but it still haunted him that he could turn and Eugene would have to kill him or the other way around. He tried to let it go as Eugene pulled him through the isles into the back. When they got to the very back they were stopped by the deli counter. Eugene looked around for a door or a way around, hearing at least four zombies moaning behind them. Zach, however, didn’t hesitate, seeing a door behind the counter he climbed over the top of it and motioned for Eugene to follow before disappearing behind the door. Zach had assumed it was a storage room, but didn’t realize how big it would be. There was meat hanging from the ceiling and past that rows upon rows with shelves organized with any food you could ask for and more. It was also freezing cold, no surprise, but neither were prepared for it in the blistering heat of a California summer. When Eugene entered he quickly pushed against the door and motioned at Zach to find something to block the door. He settled on a crate filled with instant noodles. 

“At least we’re stuck in a place with food,”

“Who said we’re stuck?” Eugene inquired. He didn’t want to be trapped.

“The zombie horde outside the door,” Zach began walking past the hanging, half spoiled meat, to the shelves. “There’s got to be a back door, right?” he asked wandering throughout the building. 

“Probably, I’m gonna try and call Ned,” He pulled his phone out and dialed in a number. “Hey, Ned, so we may take a while we ran into some...infected people and am now stuck in a grocery store storage room the temperature of Antarctica,” There was another long pause, which consisted of Ned freaking out and putting Eugene on speaker. Eugene also put them on speaker, believing it to be too unfair to leave Zach out of the conversation. “What should we do?”

“What do you have left in your bags as weapons?” Ned’s cracky voice asked.

“Um, I have a lighter, a steak knife and an empty bourbon bottle. What about you Zach?” Eugene turned to him.

“I have,” he dug through his bag, “a lighter and a crowbar from my garage,”

“Okay, that’s not enough to risk your lives with four zombies,”

“Five I checked out the glass window of the door, there’s five at least,” Zach signed letting his head fall. 

“The zombies outside our house have kinda cleared out if you could find a back door we could try to pick you all up,” Keith recommended. 

“We can look, I’ll call you back,” Eugene clicked the phone off and stood up. Zach followed suit. They searched for fifteen minutes until Zach noticed a large metal garage door. 

“Hey, Eugene call Ned that I found it!” Zach called. Eugene did and hung up several minutes later. 

“They said they would leave tomorrow morning, after all, it’s almost ten,”

“They better hope that I don’t freeze to death,” Zach jokes. In the end, they chose to sleep in the corner farthest from the cooler leaning against a crate filled with Cheerios. Eugene woke up about eight hours later snuggled up against Zach from his phone ringing. It was Ned. He texted that they were about ten minutes away. Eugene stood up slowly letting Zach sleep for a little longer. God, he’s so cute when he sleeps. He walked over to their bags and began adding cans of soup. When he assumed Ned and Keith were five minutes away to wake up Zach. The second Eugene touched Zach he bolted upward, it was now evident to Eugene how much he was sweating. Nightmare, no doubt. He couldn’t blame him, they were living in a horror story. 

“Sorry, it just you Eugene.” Zach sounded so small, he could see the fear in his eyes.

“Ned’s almost here, I packed some cans,”

Zach began to stand up, “Thanks,” Eugene’s phone buzzed again. It was Keith via Ned’s phone saying that they were there outside. There was one zombie around the corner from the back, but they should be okay. 

They were trying to open the garage door for several minutes before it finally clicked up. Not hesitating they ran out and jumped in the back where the door was quickly swung open for them by Becky. 

“We need to get help,”

“Yeah, but our phone are not gonna cut it,” Zach said, “We need a full internet connection,”

There was only one place they new with full free internet with all the works. Buzzfeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Unsolved Boys will be in the next chapter.


	5. Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guys go to the place they now they can have internet access.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about how short and bad this chapter is

It wasn’t that the Try Guys hated Buzzfeed, they had some of their fondest memories there, but it wasn’t the place they wanted to go. Keith just sighed and began to pull out of the alley of the grocery store Zach and Eugene just escaped from. The drive wasn’t long, not more than twenty minutes, but the silence in the car made it feel ten times longer. 

When they pulled up they were surprised at how barren it was, everywhere they had been at this point had someone infected, but here there was nothing. Nothing but a car under a black tarp. They got out with just as much caution, one thing you should never do is let your guard down. Zach had never sprinted into the Buzzfeed HQ so fast in his life. The elevator, to no one’s surprise, wasn’t working so they took the stairs. It was weird going into their old desk areas that are filled with other people’s things. That wasn’t the focus though, they needed to head a floor up to the main computer area. 

Eugene walked in first and his heart nearly stopped, there in front of him, gun in hand was Shane Madej with Ryan Bergara hiding behind him. The second Shane saw him he let his arms fall to his side and let out the first smile he had in a long time. 

“Good to see you,” Ryan said coming out from behind his taller friend. 

”You too,” Zach replied as he entered the room.

After many hugs, Ryan showed the guys the major dilemma on hand. 

“We came here for food and internet, but when we arrived last night the fuse was busted by something, the wires were ripped to shreds,” That means one of two things, someone destroyed it before the plague or something was in here. Zach knew he was definitely not be sleeping well tonight.   
______________________________

In the end they choose to take one hour shifts for the eight hour night. That means everyone would get one shift. Shane volunteered to go first. No one fought that, he didn’t seem to be doing great. Next was Ryan, Keith, Becky, Zach, Eugene, Ned, and finally Ariel. With it settled they all one by one began drifting off to a light sleep on the cold floor. Shane stade up of course, hand on his gun and ready. He didn’t think he’d sleep at all tonight, just like last night. He had too much to think about and he had to make sure nothing else happens, not after losing Sara. Gosh, how could he have let that happen, it should’ve been him. He should have done the first night shift. He should’ve given her the gun. He should’ve done something, anything. Everyone says, don’t dwell on the past but she was his future. He cried out in frustration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be uploaded Saturday and will be what happened to Sara


	6. Before; What Happened to Sara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should have been him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another short chapter, sorry. I'll try to make the next one longer than usual.

It had been days since they had seen a person, the only person they had heard from was Ryan, who was in a bad situation at his house. They had been running out of food and trying to correspond a way to get out of town, maybe even out of state. The night was coming quickly. They had been doing shifts to keep an eye on everyone at night. 

“I’ll go first,”

“Sara, no, I’m going first,” Shane insisted standing up from the ground. 

“No, you have been doing the first shift for the past week,”

“What does that matter,”

“Shane I’m not an idiot, you have been completely gone over your time. You. Need. Sleep,” Shane tried to fight back, but Sara gave her glare. She knows that always shuts him up. 

“Fine, you need a weapon?” She shook her head and grabbed a knife from the counter top. “Okay, Wake me up exactly at 12,”

“Just like you do?” She inquired sitting on a bar stool.

“Be safe okay?” He gave her a kiss on the top of her head, “Love you,”

“Love you too,”

______

The next time he saw her was after the loudest scream he eery heard. He leg was bleeding, Shane couldn’t tell if it was a scratch or a bite, but it wasn’t good. She was trying to pull herself back from the infected person. Shane's heart was beating four times faster than it should be. He grabbed this gun from beside him and shot the thing in its head. He watched it fall to the ground, blood spewing from the wound. He rushed over to Sara’s side. Her breath was already shortening, the wound was worse up close. 

“Shane. Shane,” She whispered to him. “You need to kill me,”

“Sara, no. You’ll be okay,”

“Shane, it’s too late. We both know that. If you don’t kill me I’ll kill you,”

“Sara..”

“Please,” Her voice was so faint, she was going fast. “I love you,”

“I love you too,” The tears in his eyes clouded his vision and wet his checks. He could no longer hear her breath. Her eyes didn’t move. Shane knew what he had to do. She would turn soon. Her skin would grow as pale as the dead man on the floor. She would go just as savage as he was. He had to kill her. He lifted his gun but didn’t shoot. He couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t shoot her, she was Sara. He tried calling Ryan but was sobbing too much to bring himself to talk on the phone. 

Two hours later he composed himself and called him. They agreed to get out of the house and go somewhere they could call for help, Buzzfeed. Ryan arrived ten minutes later and had Shane run to the car and wait for him. He shot Sara.


End file.
